This panel explores the perspectives of three academic scholars with a critical focus on contemporary representations of Asian identities within visual media, while simultaneously working at the intersections of race, queerness, gender and nationality. These texts include Disney’s Mulan (2020), television programming in South Asia, and a featured art piece from the 2021 Southeast Asia Queer Cultural Festival — all of which touch on how non-conforming practices of magic, witchcraft, and mythology can disrupt patriarchal social systems.
PhD student Saira Chhibber researches how contemporary televisual cultures interact with gender and national identities within Canadian and South Asian media, and how the figure of the churail plays into pro-feminist modes of identification. A professor at Michigan State University, Sheng-mei Ma specializes in Asian American/diasporic identities and East-West comparative studies. He questions the Western influences in Mulan and dissects the portrayal of the witch as a product of Anglo-European perceptions of sorcery and magic. Ali Na, an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University, studies how digital media performances define and resist social perceptions of Asian/ Asian diasporic identities. Her critical study of "Diwata: Queering Pre-Colonial Philippine Mythology" disrupts our understanding of unruly bodies through Filipinx tactics of decolonization, and addresses the pieces of art as a site of socio-political resistance.
Please Note: This event will not be recorded.
This panel explores the perspectives of three academic scholars with a critical focus on contemporary representations of Asian identities within visual media, while simultaneously working at the intersections of race, queerness, gender and nationality. These texts include Disney’s Mulan (2020), television programming in South Asia, and a featured art piece from the 2021 Southeast Asia Queer Cultural Festival — all of which touch on how non-conforming practices of magic, witchcraft, and mythology can disrupt patriarchal social systems.
PhD student Saira Chhibber researches how contemporary televisual cultures interact with gender and national identities within Canadian and South Asian media, and how the figure of the churail plays into pro-feminist modes of identification. A professor at Michigan State University, Sheng-mei Ma specializes in Asian American/diasporic identities and East-West comparative studies. He questions the Western influences in Mulan and dissects the portrayal of the witch as a product of Anglo-European perceptions of sorcery and magic. Ali Na, an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University, studies how digital media performances define and resist social perceptions of Asian/ Asian diasporic identities. Her critical study of "Diwata: Queering Pre-Colonial Philippine Mythology" disrupts our understanding of unruly bodies through Filipinx tactics of decolonization, and addresses the pieces of art as a site of socio-political resistance.
Please Note: This event will not be recorded.